Sexism and Philosophy
Today's (Sept. 10) Inside Higher Ed has a news story about Sally Haslanger's paper on Sexism in academic Philosophy
Today's (Sept. 10) Inside Higher Ed has a news story about Sally Haslanger's paper on Sexism in academic Philosophy
Some philosophers are bold; they defend strong positions with few hedges or caveats. Others are cautious; they defend weak positions with many hedges and caveats. Which of these two approaches, bold or cautious, is better?
Winter is a good time for a bit of navel-gazing. Blogging is an interesting medium of philosophical discourse; its virtues and vices, it seems to me at any rate, are considerably different from those of the more standard, tenure-relevant sorts of philosophical work. Posts and comments have to be relatively short, making their points quickly and clearly, even vividly. The medium doesn’t sustain narrow specialists very well. It doesn’t allow the intense, in-depth kinds of argument that so many articles and book chapters engage in. However, it also prevents the exploration of grand sweeping metaphysical worldviews. All of which prompts the question, which great philosophers of the past would have made good bloggers?
The APA has recently posted on its website the comments of four of its past Executive Directors , which were delivered in a session held at the 2005 Eastern APA. The session, titled "What Keeps Going Wrong With The APA?" was organized by John Lach, and included David A. Hoekema, Eric Hoffman, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Michael Kelly, and Richard Bett (who declined to post his comments on the APA website). William Mann, the current Acting Director, has posted his response to his four predecessors. Also of relevance to this session is John Lach's posted letter from May 17, 2005, on The Future of Philosophy.
Over at the Leiter Reports, there's beena lively discussion about irresponsible (or even abusive) advising and teaching in philosophy graduate programs. But the larger question is what is to be done?
This past weekend’s metaethics conference in Madison was wonderful in a number of ways, and while we’ll post a brief recap once the link to pictures from the conference is available, for now I want to focus on just one of those wonderful aspects, namely, the chance to sit around with other moral philosophers for hours on end, with a beer in one hand and a pointed finger in the other, not only chatting away about various philosophical positions but also engaging in a favorite pastime, namely, constructing a series of “all time” lists. It was at one such session with fellow PEA Brains Campbell Brown and David Sobel that we came to a rather surprising and puzzling revelation: while it’s easy to compile an uncontroversial list of important and influential books in moral philosophy published within the past 20 years (e.g., The Moral Problem, Political Liberalism, What We Owe to Each Other, Ruling Passions, and so forth), and it’s also easy to compile an uncontroverisal list of important and influential articles in moral philosophy since 1970 (e.g., “A Defense of Abortion,” “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” “Internal and External Reasons,” “Persons, Character, and Morality,” “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” etc.), it turns out to be very difficult to construct a list of important and influential articles published within the last 20 years. Why would this be?
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